Rail Gun: Wargaming Rules for Starship Combat (Playtest)

Wear your vac suit at all times, because all it takes is one rail gun slug to vent this whole compartment into space.

Welcome to the playtest version of RAIL GUN, a set of wargaming rules for creating sci-fi spaceship battles on the table top. It is intended as a game somewhere between hard-core simulation and quick-play beer and pretzel games. It borrows aspects from both of those kinds of space ship games, and injects some ideas from air combat and naval gaming.

This product comes with the basic rules for ship combat (more to be added as updates continue), a quick reference sheet, data cards for ships, and print-and-play topdown space ships designed by Andy Nelson of Paper Forge games.

This is the PLAYTEST VERSION of the rules. Anyone who buys will end up with the final version of the rules for free, and can provide any feedback/commentary they want (or sit back and enjoy the updates).

Some general details and information about the game:

The main rules are about 9 pages long. The additional pages add a few optional rules, rules for planets and orbits, and for carrier operations.

The game places heavy emphasis on the quality of your ship crews. Crew Quality, or CQ, affects almost every aspect of game play. Instead of large charts to determine damage to specific ship systems, Rail Gun uses "Stress" to model both minor system damage, crew casualties, and command and control problems onboard a ship. This greatly simplifies play.

If your fleet's casualties are too heavy, then your ships may immediately disengage--leaving them vulnerable to possible enemy pursuit.

A typical game involves 2-8 ships per side, and takes 45 minutes to 2 hours to play.

Dice: D6s

Measurements: Either inches or centimeters, depending on the size of your table

Table size: 3'x3' or larger

Bookeeping: Light. Each ship's speed and stress, and other factors, are tracked on its data card (each of which easily fits on a 3x5 index card).

Markers: A few, mainly for marking high acceleration and ECMs.

Movement is done by “vector.” There’s nothing to slow you down in space and there is no in-game speed limit. Speed carries over from turn to turn.

Weapons are simplified to guns, missiles, and heavy "ship killers." Guns typically inflict more damage but are shorter ranged.

I'm really liking this game and am looking forward to somehow finding the time to play. Reading through the rules, I noticed the following:

On page 6:

Fire Combat: Defense Systems
The target ship now sees if its defense systems
successfully destroy incoming missiles. Each
point defense systems allows 1D6 roll against
incoming missile attacks only. Do these against
each ship’s attacks—not all at once at the end.
For a defense system to shoot down a missile,
the player must roll their MCQ or less, OR roll a
6.

In the Fire Combat example on the next page (page 7) there is this:

The cruiser now uses its defense systems to
shoot down the incoming missiles. The cruiser
has a defenses system of 2, meaning it rolls 2d6,
each that passes a simple MCQ shooting down
one missile. The cruiser player rolls a 1 and a 6,...See more
shooting down one missile.

My reading of page 6 is that a roll of MCQ or less or a 6 shoots down a missile. Consequently, it seems the example on page 7 should have shot down both missiles, instead of just one.

If there is a preferred method of providing rules feedback, let me know.

Back to reading!

Regards,

Scott Chisholm

Nathaniel WNovember 02, 2016 2:30 am UTC

PUBLISHER

Scott,

Aarrrrgh! I always miss these discussions. There is a notification point on the account page, but I overlook it. My apologies.

Since the time of your post, I have somewhat changed the way the defense systems work; there should be a rules update very soon.

As they stand now, it is a simple CQ test for the defense system to work, rather than an MCQ or a 6. The "or a 6" was a way for me to build in a little extra protection for the ship, in case its MCQ was really low due to stress. Turns out, as playtests continued, that MCQs are frequently low and thus defense systems were being rendered too weak. So now it's just a CQ test.

Thanks for catching the glaring proofreading error, though---I will check the current playtest version and correct before I upload the latest version.

Posts here or emails to thedogsbrush(at)gmail(dot)com work great.

So sorry again for failing to reply.

JOHN SCOTT CNovember 02, 2016 2:38 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Nathaniel,

No problem; I'm just glad to have been of some assistance.

Still haven't found the time to push metal around....

Regards,

Scott Chisholm

Michael CJune 27, 2016 10:53 pm UTC

Any new updates on finishing these rules or have they been put on hold?

Nathaniel WAugust 26, 2016 5:58 pm UTC

PUBLISHER

Michael,

Sorry for the delay!
I am reworking the whole kit and kaboodle because I just wasn't happy with where it was going. New updates will be coming soon.

Aleksandar SJanuary 18, 2016 11:36 am UTC

Can you tell me something about solo playability? Is it possible (and how difficult) to make a programmed opponent that can compete with my ideas how to run a ship?

Nathaniel WJanuary 28, 2016 12:30 am UTC

PUBLISHER

Aleksander---It is solo-friendly in that the game does not rely upon hidden information to be playable, ie, there are no cards, pre-plotted information, etc. But the game does not have a solo-play engine (though perhaps it should!---I will percolate a bit on that).

It will include a short campaign that will be good for solitaire play, a kind of Sink the Bismarck IN SPAAACE that helps teach the player the game.

I think you could "program" your enemy to fight either aggressively or timidly---basically, when it's time to make a decision for the enemy, consider three things it could do and do the one that fits its profile. You sound like an experienced solo player so I suspect I'm telling you something you already know. It would not be hard to graft onto the game, because the movement system is not particular complex or demanding.

Sorry it took me so long to answer---the Vault does not have an alert system I'm aware of (could be wrong) to tell me there's been...See more a discussion on product.

Thanks for your interest. Did I answer your question or do you need more information about the game?

Stuart TOctober 19, 2015 7:09 pm UTC

PURCHASER

Hi looks very promising - when will the fancy new ship sheets be available?
Thanks!

Nathaniel WJanuary 28, 2016 12:32 am UTC

PUBLISHER

Stuart, sorry for the ages it took me to respond. I didn't realize there had been a discussion message!

The new ship sheets are in flux at the moment, because I have changed how the ships are detailed, systems, weapons, etc. I am not sure the artist will have time in his schedule to get new charts done in the immediate future.

I have put some details about the game's mechanics on my blog, including a sample of a ship's data sheet---scroll down, as the first part of the post is a repeat of what I've included in the game's description here.

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